just had a quickie with the 2007 Mengsa: yunnan green (meaning a specific yunnan tea flavor as can be found also in yunnan black tea) but milder than fresh yunnan green tea (as had from YSLLC). didn't play much but getting astringency after 3rd steep. might be too much leaf. it is right up my alley tho tastewise. nice.
i'm a sucker for yunnan tastes

starred: 3/5 (kinda mild)(i'd buy it, occasionally)

Last edited by silverneedles on Apr 29th, '08, 19:15, edited 3 times in total.

emmy wrote:So I tried again with the Old Green Tree. ... I'm not sure I'd go back to buy this tea on it's own.

Aside from using too much leaf, your experience this time seems to mirror the others, including your evaluation. Often with pu the aftertaste is an important part of the package. A light taste is pretty standard in young pu, but some have more charm than this one. You may not get as many infusions if you use less leaf, but it should be less painful on the mouth.

20s & drank 'wash' = ...wash 20,20,30 = watery, very distant tanninic/astringent... sort of metallic mouthfeel
2min = much the same, more intense astringent
4min = concentrated astringency/tannin into a harshness...
not much flavor of any kind
last infusion left a "dry mouth"

still have a huge piece left...[/img]

Last edited by silverneedles on Apr 29th, '08, 13:10, edited 1 time in total.

Ok, brewed another pot of the Mengsa. I pushed the tea a little less, by which I mean I did shorter infusions. Piggy excitedly waited sitting among some cups. Actually, he was hiding since we had a little crisis this morning. There was a death threat and we thought we caught a whiff of bacon!

Overall impression again is that this is a very sweet tea with a nice feeling on the lips. It seemed a little rougher on the mouth this time despite shorter infusion times. Maybe four stars is a bit much, but definitely the best performer of the five in this tasting set. Piggy liked it enough to consider taking a pu bath, but he doesn't swim too well and finally decided just to catch some rays. If I didn't already have so much sheng sitting around, I would seriously consider buying a cake of this ... in fact I am considering it anyway! The spent leaves are mostly large broken pieces of modest sized leaves, quite green, with some stems.

Last edited by Salsero on Apr 30th, '08, 02:43, edited 3 times in total.

wet leaves smell nice, much like Liu An (one of my favorite "everyday" teas -- pan-fired like a green tea, but pressed and aged like a pu-erh). Very green-tea-ey, almost like a longjing (dragonwell).
1: ~30s. yummy, light and greeny. tastes kinda like Liu An too. So *this* is the winner of the bunch, the last one I try... 2: ~20s. brew is a little darker, and flavor is a little woodier. now tasting a little more like some of the others in this tasting set, with that woody taste. but still better than the rest. more complex, with a little sweetness. some tongue-tingle too!
3: ~20s. used too much water I think. still good. tingly. a floral, sweet aftertaste lingers minutes later. wet leaves still smell remarkably like Liu An (though that could be something from my yixing).
4: still dark and flavorful, and interesting enough to keep me wondering what these flavors are -- it's not like other pu-erhs I've had. feels very lively in my mouth. (qi?)

This is a really nice tea. Though it still has a lot of the "woody"ness that the other teas in this pack had, the wood is gently hovering over lots of other interesting stuff (rather than a mouthful of twig). Sweetness, flowers, and a lot of pleasant tingling in my mouth (has anyone else noticed the tingling with this one?).

I give it 4 stars, considering the price: $12.60 for a 357g bing. That's a lot of decent tea! Still, I may not go out of my way to buy any. I don't know a lot about aging potential, but my "feeling" is that a young tea with lots of strong flavors -- smoky, jerky, citrusy, etc. -- has a lot of stuff that's going to mellow into a complex blend. Though this is a very pleasant tea now, I'm not sure that there's a lot of "strong" flavor in there for such a young sheng. Anyway, that's just my feeling about aging sheng, and I'm most likely wrong. Anyway, this is hands-down the best one in the Year Of Green sampler, IMHO.. oops, I haven't tried the Crab Feet yet. I'll get to it...

...liquor smell ...maybe ....flowery.?...taste:...bitter astringency up to the tip of the tongue. other flavors: maybe green twigs... aftertaste of the leftover tannins on the tongue, could be interesting but dont know if i can make it without the astringency...

#2 ,30sec 3oz --> many minutes later i'm getting a sweet aftertaste on the tongue !!!! +7minutes after

I'm moving your Banzhang down to 1 star because I can't do a half star and we don't have any 1 star ratings yet.

I wasn't laughing. We are all pretty much in the same boat here except MarshalN and Bearsbearsbears. You might be a few months behind the rest of us, but not much. You opinion is just as valid as the rest.

I found this tea pretty boring. I got some dead-plant smells and tastes at first, but they failed pretty quickly. To put this into a story...

I arrive at the grove. The area is arid. The orange trees have all but died, spewing forth only a number of green leaves. I crunch over the dead grass and kick up some dust and grass pieces from the ground as I walk. Noticing oranges on the trees, I become curious. I grab an orange and rip it off with modest force. It comes off with a snap along with a sizable portion of the branch. Pollen is released from the branch. I squeeze the orange, but it is dried-out and solid as a rock. I smell it, but the smell has dried away. All that's left is me in this dead field. It's time for my nomadic-self to grab up my spear and depart.

some interesting flavors, some similar to King of Pu-Erh, but then its hard to infuse & enjoy because the "astringency" comes on pretty quick and strong. one plus is sometimes it goes into a sweet-tingly? feeling aftertaste on the tongue, but also frequent dry-throat sensation if astringency reaches strength. there's a very distant medicinal feeling(to me), also something like aged? no pond/fishy.

all this, so far, when astringency/tannin is high, i've infused it shorter or more water, but it comes out watery = the flavors and astringency are diluted...not sure what else to try, maybe cooler water?

the leaf seems like alot of young buds which probably contribute to the high astringency/strong tannin.